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Comment by ben_w | Hacker News Reader

Non-paywalled alternative on same topic: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

> “Congress is freaking out because it appears DOGE didn’t really realize NNSA oversees the nuclear stockpile,”

This chaos absolutely reminds me of one of the recent-ish stories from Tesla and, as a root cause, basically every story from Twitter since he bought it.

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I have confidence in the ability of the Republican party to blow off any notions of shame or collective responsibility. Total control over a badly damaged institution is more appealing than a pluralistic role in a well functioning one for some people, and it is exactly such people that control the party now.

I wonder if he'll need to break something bad enough to get kicked out?

This should definitely be the thing. If anyone still thinks he isn’t an absolute moron, I don’t even know what to say. Firing people because you have no idea what they do is just so spot on for his “I’m the smartest guy in the room so if I can’t figure it out, nobody can”. He is very rarely the smartest guy in the room…

The US is a defacto dictatorship now.

Do you think there will be a presidential election in ~3.75 years time?

My prediction is there will be but Trump does everything he can get away with to tilt it towards a family member being the next. E.g. executive orders that cause things to go in his favour.

It's interesting that he threw Vance under the bus recently when asked about this. Clearly he has someone in mind already.

Russia has elections, but the elections don't matter. The elections are ritualized consent for a despotic state.

American elections are already ritualized. You can't really vote for an anti-oligarch/regulate corporations candidate unless you're in a couple districts. There are very few "rule of law" candidates. There's no voting based way to get congress persons to stop trading stock.

I think there will be the performance of voting in 3.75 years, but even less substance to it than we already have.

We are beyond that way of thinking. It would be like someone breaking something bad in a dictatorship. Best case they get moved and a similar person takes over.

It is more likely he gets kicked out if he humiliates Trump somehow.

At this point, I think the only practical way to get rid of him will be to publicly embarrass Trump about 'President Elon' enough that Trump can't take it anymore.

I feel like public embarrassment only works on those who can feel shame. If his first 4 years of the presidency wasn't enough, then I don't think there's much more the world, let alone the US, can do.

But no nukes have gone off, it’s fine, probably they weren’t doing anything. (The same argument for my Twitter app loads fine, so the fired employees were probably not needed) /s

If nobody is monitoring radiation levels then you can't have any radiation leaks. Simple.

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